Stumbled across this video today, its over a year old but I would like to share it with you

 

 

I think this is the best non-biased SWG vs SWTOR video

 

Watching this makes me want to try out the swgemu thingy.

 

Have any of you played SWG?

I played SWG, but unfortunately it was the NGU. After hearing about the pre NGU game i was kinda bummed out that i didnt get into SWG earlier. After playing tons of games with combat roles, i actually took the opportunity to make a non combat toon. I made a starship manufacturer and i made some tie fighters here and there, but nothing major. I have the digital download of the NGE, but i think for the EMU i would need to have the actual CDs.

I played SWG until the NGE hit it.

 

Then after a break of over a year, I played it again with the new (crappy) 9 classes, 90 level system.

 

SWG was great for roleplayers, but it doesn't feature anything for PvE-raiders. There are a few themepark-style mission-hubs (like emperors retreat), but those are really not worth the time.

 

Also, all nostalgia aside, the game did have serious flaws.. just listing a few...

- balancing was a nightmare with the old skill system. Defense specialists could arrange for being nearly invulnerable

- wookiee were allowed to join the empire and become officers in the empire (that is where my wookiee hatred originates from)

- Jedi were allowed as playable chars and after NGE were allowed for everyone... which was the most massive breach of timeline continuity that ever happened in all of starwars (it is set after episode IV, where order 66 is still active and any imperial would shoot a Jedi on sight... yet there were dozens and hundreds of them waving their lightsabers around)

 

So in conclusion... if you are a starwars roleplay fan, then go play it. If you are not a roleplayer, then stay away from it.

hehe i spent hours decorating houses tbh

 

SWG as previously stated had huge flaws, but it also had for me the best community ive ever encountered online, things like the ID Designer we have in SWTOR was an actual profession in SWG, one of what id call the "social" professions, others being things such as dancer or musician who obviously danced/played music in cantinas and ppl would come listen or watch and get combat buffs or get rid of combat weariness sort of thing

 

If im honest, if the star wars galaxies i played was still around before all the combat updates etc id prob still be subbed to it an wouldnt be looking at swtor, not that swtor is a bad game i like it alot, its just swg offered more alot more than any mmo ive played since including wow

Why on earth did you necro that thread? It was good but had so much flames.

Never played SWG... wish I had tho. D:

I played SWG and I've played SW;TOR since early access. If I could, I'd still be playing SWG. I played post-NGE from 2008 till shutdown in 2011. I've tried SWGEmu, but it's not to my liking, combat is too slow for me and I can't craft pets. I might try it again when they implement Creature Handler. There is another emulator being worked on, ProjectSWG, which will be the game as it was at the last patch before shutdown. They currently have a test server that you can mess around on, but it has a long way to go.

 

Don't you want to be a Jedi like your father

 

Nah I want to be an interior decorator

SWG was great. I had a pre-9 jedi that I shelved due to almost getting a perma death with him. Also had a BH and when they made it so you no longer needed master scout I made him into pikeman due to an exceptional nightsister lance I had (it was pretty epic).

 

The things that really set it apart was the crafting system (the sheer dedication needed was crazy but man it was worth it), player housing/cities...These were sometimes works of art. And my personal favorite was faction bases and raiding enemy cities for an entire night trying to blow them up.

 

Oh and going to war with another guild.

Don't you want to be a Jedi like your father

 

Nah I want to be an interior decorator

 

That was the beauty of it. If you wanted to do that, you could. I played a Rodian who ran a starship salvage shop on Tatooine outside of Mos Eisley. I stayed out of the war and specialized in selling salvaged ship parts (space loot). It earned me many credits and I had a lot of fun doing it.

Edited July 25, 2013 by TheBBP

I played SWG until the NGE hit it.

 

Then after a break of over a year, I played it again with the new (crappy) 9 classes, 90 level system.

 

SWG was great for roleplayers, but it doesn't feature anything for PvE-raiders. There are a few themepark-style mission-hubs (like emperors retreat), but those are really not worth the time.

 

Also, all nostalgia aside, the game did have serious flaws.. just listing a few...

- balancing was a nightmare with the old skill system. Defense specialists could arrange for being nearly invulnerable

- wookiee were allowed to join the empire and become officers in the empire (that is where my wookiee hatred originates from)

- Jedi were allowed as playable chars and after NGE were allowed for everyone... which was the most massive breach of timeline continuity that ever happened in all of starwars (it is set after episode IV, where order 66 is still active and any imperial would shoot a Jedi on sight... yet there were dozens and hundreds of them waving their lightsabers around)

 

So in conclusion... if you are a starwars roleplay fan, then go play it. If you are not a roleplayer, then stay away from it.

 

Post NGE (around late 2007) the game was better than any other iteration before it. When I say that, I'm talking about end game PvE and PvP. Early in the game, Pre-CU/CU, end game didn't really exist, except for PvP which was good. If you didn't play at this time, than you obviously shouldn't comment on it. Yes, I played all 4 iterations. It had issues like any other game, obviously losing the massive amounts of professions was a bummer, as well as the queue based combat system, but the last few years of SWG was without a doubt the best iteration of gameplay ever.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Pistols

Stumbled across this video today, its over a year old but I would like to share it with you

 

 

I think this is the best non-biased SWG vs SWTOR video

 

Watching this makes me want to try out the swgemu thingy.

 

Have any of you played SWG?

In my opinion, that video is actually biased towards SWG and only compared stuff he liked about SWG that SWTOR lacks, rather than showcasing the pros and cons of both games.

 

Anyway, to your question. Yes I did play Star Wars Galaxies. I played sometime after launch, for a few months. I had a bothan Master Bounty Hunter. But to be honest I didn't really like SWG all that much, one of the reasons is lack of content, nor any real meaningful missions or quests (at least during the months I played).

 

I mostly stuck around and tried to enjoy the game for what it was, mostly because it was Star Wars, and I was trying to unlock my Force-Sensitive slot so I can make a Jedi. I like certain sand box games (like Fallout 3, and the Elder Scrolls Games), but those sand box games actually have content or stories to find. SWG didn't really have much. It had points of interests, mission terminals... I don't even remember much of any NPC quest givers at all. In SWG I spent a lot of time hunting, repeating delivery missions, and repeating bounty missions. I also bought a small house.

 

The few things I liked about it was that it had housing, a good crafting system, and you can put up your own town (if you're into that sort of thing). And you can also alternatively play without much combat (My brother was a twilek Entertainer, who spent a lot of his time in a Cantina playing music).

 

In the end though, we just got bored with SWG. I think we left before the Lightspeed expansion. It was the only Star Wars MMO around at the time, so we stuck with it for as long as we did, but it just wasn't for us. (We left and went to City of Heroes and loved the heck out of it, stayed on that for more than 5 years.)

 

Currently we are quite happy with SWTOR. Been playing since beta. Most definitely for us, with this game's addition of focused story into an MMO, and with its character roleplaying through cinematic dialogue options and its questing style... SWTOR is miles better for us than SWG was back then. It has come to a point now that sometimes we have trouble playing any other MMO with the traditional questing methods of reading a mission text and simply accepting the quest. I think SWTOR's fully voiced dialogue options has spoiled us.

 

I admit SWTOR is not perfect, it doesn't have a few of the stuff I liked in SWG, and there are a few things I wish I could change with this game (like putting some Elder Scrolls style sandbox elements to it, not SWG sandbox), but I definitely still like this way better than the SWG we played.

Both game provides some awesome starwars stuff and I enjoyed SWG but I also enjoy SWTOR

 

SWG had the freedom and the era to really enjoy an be a part of that universe

 

SWTOR offers a great storyline some upgraded graphics and a totally different era

I tried to play SWG a few times over the years, and at each try it was for about a week or just a few days. That's how long I could stand it for. I will not play a game just because I am a fan of the franchise/IP and I just found very little interest in it. Perhaps I wasn't looking very hard, but what little of the story I could find just didn't interest me, and that is one of the main reasons I play games (Even MMO's). I can't say I am particularly keen on sandbox-style games either, so that did not help. On the other hand, it let me be an Ithorian, so that's good, and the one thing I think SWTOR should take note from!

 

Interestingly enough, I remember SWG always having a terrible reputation. Yet when you come to this forum, anyone who, like me, dislikes SWG seems to be very much in the minority! A lot of people here seem to declare it as the best game ever created. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying they are wrong or anything and I do think it is a shame that it had to close. I just could not see the appeal at all.

 

SWTOR provides me with high-quality story content, and that's really why I play. I enjoy the combat and other aspects of the game too. Also, I would take the Old Republic over the movie era any day. Much better way of exploring the lore, I think. Each to their own though!

Edited July 25, 2013 by Cyberwoman

Perhaps I wasn't looking very hard, but what little of the story I could find just didn't interest me, and that is one of the main reasons I play games (Even MMO's).

 

In SWG you made your own story, it wasn't scripted with "choices". The story was dependant upon what you did and how you interacted with the world. There was no "fleet". Everyone was everywhere across all the planets. Imagine that.

 

Not saying that's better than the other, but for some that is what made SWG epic.

In SWG you made your own story, it wasn't scripted with "choices". The story was dependant upon what you did and how you interacted with the world.

This is something I've heard once mentioned before by some other guy a few years ago in some other gaming forum about SWG. I asked him what he meant by that, because I am honestly confused by it. The guy never replied back to me.

 

You see, I never got this. Was there some sort of game feature that I wasn't aware of back in SWG that allowed a player to create their own stories? Or do you mean, you're free to make up and pretend a story is happening in your mind while you're adventuring and inwardly roleplaying your character within yourself while playing, based on what you're doing and what you have done?

 

Because if it's the second one... then you can practically do that with any MMO, including SWTOR. Heck, sometimes I do that with my Level 55 Jedi Sentinel when I'm doing dailies or just randomly visiting Tatooine as a story unfolds in my mind when I decided to go solo the world boss in the Dune Sea.

 

I never understood why this is mentioned as a pro for SWG, when you're free to use your own imagination in the same way in any MMO, in addition to whatever they have.

 

(On a side note: I do wish SWTOR had space on your character sheet to write biographies. I have backstories for each of my characters, but nowhere to put them.)

There was no "fleet". Everyone was everywhere across all the planets. Imagine that.

This one I agree with. SWTOR's concept of a Fleet is a somewhat new thing for me with MMO's. When I first entered into it back in beta, I had assumed it was just a travel location where newbies could get acquainted with stuff before going to Coruscant. City of Heroes didn't have this "fleet" neither (although players do sometimes hang out in Atlas Park, but that was by their own choice, not because of game design).

Edited July 25, 2013 by Gamman

Stumbled across this video today, its over a year old but I would like to share it with you

 

 

I think this is the best non-biased SWG vs SWTOR video

 

Watching this makes me want to try out the swgemu thingy.

 

Have any of you played SWG?

Wow, non-biased? First off, that video was made in February 2012. Barely a month after SWTOR's release and he's comparing it to SWG which has about 9 years on it.

 

Not to mention that SWG was already bleeding subscribers pre-NGE because of the game's horrendous grind. SOE was jealous of WoW's success because clearly players were more interested in a game like WoW that was more centered on action than they were playing a class- oh excuse me. A "profession" where the whole experience was /dance(ing) in a cantina.

Don't you want to be [a] Jedi like your father? "Na, I wan't to be an interior decorator."

 

What is the first thing you think about when someone says Star Wars? Me personally, I think about the Jedi, Sith and awesome powers like the Force and wielding a lightsaber. So naturally when I went into SWG I wanted to become a Jedi. Well I had to wait and by wait I mean grind horrendously to level 90, perform a bunch of mind melting, tedious tasks before I could finally become a Jedi. Hooray you're a Jedi now, just make sure you don't die because if you die 3 times as a Jedi your character is deleted, but don't worry you did all those tedious tasks before why not do it all. Over. Again. (I wish I was joking.)

 

Ahem, so with SOE desperate to regain its subscribers they implemented the infamous NGE in hopes of regaining subscribers. If you watched the video it clearly did not work out well.

 

A group of players that actually had the endurance to progress in the game were slapped down by SOE. Not only did NGE dump the game's previous system it failed incredibly at delivering an enjoyable streamlined experience. PvE was pathetic and the PvP was laughable at best. Not to mention the game's blatantly bad optimization made even the strongest computers stumble and crash.

 

All in all it's too early to compare these two games. Let alone it makes no sense to compare the games in terms of content since they were both separate styles. SWG being a "sandbox" (A very generous term) and SWTOR being a thempark MMO. But in my opinion SWTOR succeeded more at creating a real Star Wars universe than SOE did with their Uncle Owen's class- Oops, I mean "profession."

 

Edited July 26, 2013 by TalkingDinosaur

This is something I've heard once mentioned before by some other guy a few years ago in some other gaming forum about SWG. I asked him what he meant by that, because I am honestly confused by it. The guy never replied back to me.

 

You see, I never got this. Was there some sort of game feature that I wasn't aware of back in SWG that allowed a player to create their own stories? Or do you mean, you're free to make up and pretend a story is happening in your mind while you're adventuring and inwardly roleplaying your character within yourself while playing, based on what you're doing and what you have done?

SWG in a nutshell.

You see, I never got this. Was there some sort of game feature that I wasn't aware of back in SWG that allowed a player to create their own stories?

 

No feature at all, players literally had to work with one another just like in RL. Crafting for example, players in guilds tended to hunt together to help their armorsmiths get the mats they needed to support their players, which in turn created their own "quests" to go where they needed. I could probably list many more examples than this one, but essentially you as the player defined how the game was spent. You didn't need to rely on "class stories", you progressed when you wanted to, and made your own Star Wars adventure. You could do it solo, with a handful of friends or a gigantic guild.

 

Later on in the game, around 2009-2010 I believe, they actually added a side class tree "Chronicler" that allowed players to actually create their OWN quests, then sell them off to players for credits, or just share them with friends. Was pretty slick. The PvE end game was pretty terrible in the first few years, as there wasn't much to do but gather resources and such for crafting professions & PvP. In 2007 they started to bring in end game quests that were pretty solid, and it really began to take shape. The game went through some ups and downs, essentially the entire gameplay changed 3 different times within 2 1/2 years since release. The "NGE" didn't start off well at all, for various reasons, but eventually the developers began to polish it and did one helluva job. Cities you created, tons of mounts/vehicles, atmosphereic flight, non-railed space, etc, etc.

 

Again, two different games between SWG and TOR. IMO you can't judge them side by side. SWG was a sandbox, this game is not. I'm not an SWG bandwagoner that will spit on TOR or vice versa, they essentially are apples and oranges. But I wish a lot of the peeps who left SWG earlier on had a chance to see the game at the end, was beyond epic.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Pistols

This is something I've heard once mentioned before by some other guy a few years ago in some other gaming forum about SWG. I asked him what he meant by that, because I am honestly confused by it. The guy never replied back to me.

 

You see, I never got this. Was there some sort of game feature that I wasn't aware of back in SWG that allowed a player to create their own stories? Or do you mean, you're free to make up and pretend a story is happening in your mind while you're adventuring and inwardly roleplaying your character within yourself while playing, based on what you're doing and what you have done?

 

Yah pretty much you go out and roleplay. You zone into the game and you ask yourself, what do i want to be? You arent limited to just combat roles, you could if you wanted to role play a non combat role. You can become a ship builder, weapon manufacturer, city builder, mayor or whatever. Some people like chuckles up there a few posts up, might not understand people would want to role play as a non combatant. But the choice *is* there for people to play as non combatants. If your idea of fun or a hobby is something like collecting stamps, who am i to say that you are wrong? In a game like EVE, you can ignore all the NPC interaction in the game and focus solely on player interaction. You become another players entertainment, and they become yours and its all random. The interaction can take on many forms...you can blow up another player, then can blow you up. You can go to a solar system controlled by an enemy player corporation and see if it has resources that make it worth attacking. Or you can defend your solar systems resources and keep enemy players out. You can even run into a random player in null sec space in EVE (basically no police protection) and you guys can sit there and not attack each other.

 

 

They call it a sandbox game because its just like those sandpits kids used to play in back in the day. It was a small area with sand, and some buckets and shovels. You go in the sand pit with your friend you fill up the buckets and make yourself a little sand castle, maybe you bust out some army men and have yourselves a little battle. The developers of a sandbox game provide you with the sand and tools to play in. It's up to you and the other players to figure out how to use those tools and make your own fun.

 

 

My problem with SWG and EVE online, is that despite being sandboxes it is possible to become self sufficient. Players can have multiple alts or multiple accounts and they would have to rely less on other players. I think if you eliminated alt play in sandboxes then that would force you to rely on other people. In EVE online for example i started with one account and specialized in mining ore from asteroid belts. But then i started another account, and on that character i specialized in transport. So i could have two instances of EVE online running and in one window i was mining ore, and in the other i was hauling the ore to the space station for storage. Thats the kind of self sufficiency i'm talking about. You can roll a combat character that relies on a manufacturer alt for supplies and weapons. Even though i did it myself, i hated the way the system was set up. Instead of me relying on another player to be my ore transporter i could do it myself with an alt.

SWG had maybe one or two things I wish this game had. Free roam space combat and massive sandbox planets (Though I found this a problem too.)

 

The first planet you encounter if I recall was Tatooine which was a massive desert full of random things running around. The questing on the planet was a bit tedious as it made you run all over the entire planet finding an objective killing it or looting it and reporting to a new location half way on the other side of the world. This made for an awful questing experience imo.

 

Class design was a bit odd and had no balance whatsoever. Entertainers really had no place in the game aside from sitting in cantinas all day and socializing (Pure speculation I didn't even pay attention to the class.) PvP was bogus and had overpowered set ups.

 

PVE seemed non-existent and no drive to do it. The game was basically Skyrim with no quest givers or direction to me. At first glance it looks absolutely addicting, but after playing it for awhile you start to realize it isn't all that it would seem.

 

SWG brought a lot of great ideas to MMOs. I do not discredit it one bit as it was revolutionary for the time period it was brought into. MMOs were really starting to make names for themselves and WoW was just starting out. (which also destroyed this game later on.) If I could go back and play it, I certainly would as it had some really cool things I wish this game would implement into modern MMOS and perhaps redefine the genre.

 

As currently, the genre is filled with games that last for a year or two and die off into a spiral of nothingness. I really want to see this game add free roam space or at least something that allows us to bring the "Star" back into Star Wars.

 

Rant off.

I fully believe that SWG would not be popular today. It did not hold anyone's hand and guide them from here to there and promise them reward if they did "x" amount of stuff. If you wanted to be a successful crafter, you had to put A LOT of time and effort into it. Most of the joy came out of dealing with the community and if I had to compare communities, I would say that overall SWG had a more even-keel and mature community.

I fully believe that SWG would not be popular today. It did not hold anyone's hand and guide them from here to there and promise them reward if they did "x" amount of stuff. If you wanted to be a successful crafter, you had to put A LOT of time and effort into it.

The point of playing a game is to have fun, It seems like you're sneering at people who like to have fun the "hand-held" way. I could just as easily sneer at those whose fun includes obsessing about putting time and "effort" into playing a game.

 

In any event, even in a sandbox game, people do X amount of stuff in the hopes of gaining Y reward for their characters. No one would play a game, theme park or sandbox, if their characters did not achieve things.

The point of playing a game is to have fun, It seems like you're sneering at people who like to have fun the "hand-held" way. I could just as easily sneer at those whose fun includes obsessing about putting time and "effort" into playing a game.

 

In any event, even in a sandbox game, people do X amount of stuff in the hopes of gaining Y reward for their characters. No one would play a game, theme park or sandbox, if their characters did not achieve things.

 

The point of the game is to have fun, that is 100% correct. That is why I say that SWG would not be popular today. The masses want a hand-held guided tour through their grind with painted paths and plenty of signs along the way to keep them from having to do any guess work.

 

The type of game that I prefer is not popular. I am cool with that.

That's the really odd thing about what SWG used to be. You could of rolled and spec'd into an entertainer and just spent most of your time in a cantina, being social... and getting XP for it.... and it was great!

 

Even as a combat profession I would spend hours if not days without moving from Mos Eisley's cantina before the NGE hit. Without full on raids I never felt like I had to be top level or spec to appreciate the game... which is something I cannot say about any other MMO I've played

Edited July 26, 2013 by Omisri